2nd Samuel Chapter 21 verse 2 Holy Bible
And the king called the Gibeonites, and said unto them (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; and the children of Israel had sworn unto them: and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah);
read chapter 21 in ASV
Then the king sent for the Gibeonites; (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but were the last of the Amorites, to whom the children of Israel had given an oath; but Saul, in his passion for the children of Israel and Judah, had made an attempt on their lives:)
read chapter 21 in BBE
And the king called the Gibeonites, and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remainder of the Amorites; and the children of Israel had sworn to them; and Saul sought to smite them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah.)
read chapter 21 in DARBY
And the king called the Gibeonites, and said unto them; (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; and the children of Israel had sworn unto them: and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah.)
read chapter 21 in KJV
And the king called the Gibeonites, and said to them; (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; and the children of Israel had sworn to them: and Saul sought to slay them, in his zeal to the children of Israel and Judah.)
read chapter 21 in WBT
The king called the Gibeonites, and said to them (now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; and the children of Israel had sworn to them: and Saul sought to kill them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah);
read chapter 21 in WEB
And the king calleth for the Gibeonites, and saith unto them -- as to the Gibeonites, they `are' not of the sons of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorite, and the sons of Israel had sworn to them, and Saul seeketh to smite them in his zeal for the sons of Israel and Judah --
read chapter 21 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 2. - Saul sought to slay them in his zeal. We gather from various incidental circumstances that Saul, in some part of his reign, manifested great zeal in an attempt to carry out literally the enactments of the Levitical Law; but he seems to have done so with the same ferocity as that which he displayed in slaughtering the priests at Nob with their wives and children. Thus he had put to death wizards and all who dealt with familiar spirits (1 Samuel 28:9), in accordance with Exodus 22:18 and Leviticus 20:6. In the same way he seems to have tried to exterminate the aboriginal inhabitants of Palestine, in accordance with Deuteronomy 7:2, and had especially massacred a large number of Gibeonites, in violation of the covenant made with them by Joshua and all Israel (Joshua 9:3, 15-27). And as he would thus acquire "fields and vineyards" robbed from them to give to his captains, his conduct was probably popular, and the cause of a general system of wrong and oppression practised upon all the natives. It had thus become a national sin, and as such was punished by a national calamity. Amorites; that is highlanders, mountaineers. Strictly they were Hivites (Joshua 9:7).
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(2) For his bloody house.--Better, for the blood-guilty house. Saul's family and descendants are regarded, according to the universal ideas of the times, as sharers in his guilt. The story of the Gibeonites and of Joshua's league with them is told in Joshua 9, but Saul's attempt to destroy them is mentioned only here. It is plain, from what is said of them in 2Samuel 21:8, that they had never become incorporated with the Israelites by circumcision, but remained a distinct people. Saul's sin consisted in the violation of the solemn oath, in the Lord's name, by which the nation of Israel was bound to the Gibeonites. "His zeal" in that case was of the same ungodly character with many other acts of his reign, in which pride, arrogance, and self-will were cloaked under a zeal for God's honour and His people's welfare.The Amorites.--More precisely, the Gibeonites were Hivites (Joshua 9:7); but they are called Amorites (=mountaineers) as a frequent general name for the old people of Palestine.Two questions are often asked in connection with this narrative: (1) Why the punishment of Saul's sin should have been so long delayed? and (2) why it should at last have fallen upon David and his people, who had no share in the commission of the sin? The answer to both questions is in the fact that Israel both sinned and was punished as a nation. Saul slew the Gibeonites, not simply as the son of Kish, but as the king of Israel, and therefore involved all Israel with him in the violation of the national oath; and hence, until the evil should be put away by the execution of the immediate offender or his representatives, all Israel must suffer. The lesson of the continuity of the nation's life, and of its continued responsibility from age to age, was greatly enhanced by the delay. Besides this, there were so many other grievous sins for which Saul was to be punished, that it was hardly possible to bring out during his lifetime the special Divine displeasure at this one.
